


Wind Down

by iamfitzwilliamdarcy



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Dick Isn't Actually in This Fic Bruce Just Thinks About Him A Lot, Gen, Jason Todd is Robin, Robin Jason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:21:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26808040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamfitzwilliamdarcy/pseuds/iamfitzwilliamdarcy
Summary: When Bruce returns from patrol to find a still-awake little Robin, he teaches Jason stretches to help him wind down.
Relationships: Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne
Kudos: 53





	Wind Down

**Author's Note:**

> At the start of quarantine, I was convinced I would write all my friends a short and sweet one-shot. Seven months later, here is quarantine fic #3. I'm still chugging at least lol. This is a gift for tumblr user @soldier-poet-king, who wanted Robin Jason when I asked! <3

Jason was still awake when Bruce got home, well past three in the morning. 

“Jay,” he said, blinking in tired surprise. “What are you still doing up?”

Jason, dressed in his soft pajamas, his thick hair still shower-damp though Bruce had sent him home hours ago, scowled and didn’t answer. 

“You should go to bed,” Bruce insisted. 

Jason pulled his knees to his chest and buried his face in them. He got like that, sometimes, when Bruce pushed him or he thought he wasn’t doing something right but he didn’t know how to fix it. It had been an issue at school, when he was struggling to settle in, that had worried Bruce constantly into his own sleepless nights. 

“It’s just a big transition,” Leslie had told Bruce, hurriedly, when he’d asked her about it, in her professional opinion. She had disclaimed, of course, that she was hardly a psychiatrist and certainly didn’t specialize in children--she really had to be getting back to work, but had continued, almost sympathetically, “You’re his safe space, keep being that, and give him time.”

The incidents decreased and Jason started thriving at school. He was bringing home good grades, patrolling regularly with Bruce. They didn’t go away completely, but he seemed happy to Bruce, happy enough that Bruce tried not to worry about him shutting down again. It hadn’t happened in so long, Bruce thought maybe it was just a phase. Kids were always having phases, he thought. That’s what everyone said. 

Now, Jason mumbled something that sounded like, “Couldn’t.” 

“Oh,” Bruce said. He frowned and studied his boy. Still small for his age, Jason barely fit in Bruce’s large computer chair. He’d been stiff out on patrol tonight, Bruce reflected, and Bruce was willing to bet he was tired. But patrol often left Bruce himself amped, and Dick had never been able to settle after their late nights together. 

“If you wait until I shower,” Bruce told him, instead of pushing more, “you can stretch with me.”

Jason peeked up enough to roll his eyes at Bruce, but he was still there when Bruce returned, rubbing a towel across his hair.

“Come on,” he said, beckoning Jason over to the mats. Jason came, careful not to trip over the too-long legs of his pajama pants. Bruce wondered briefly how they’d escaped Alfred’s hemming, but he supposed the kid was growing fast and by tomorrow they might fit properly--and by the next day be too short. 

Bruce sat down on the mat, crossing his legs. Jason imitated him, muttering, almost derisively, “criss-cross applesauce.”

“I like to stretch before I sleep,” Bruce explained. “It helps keep my body in shape and calms me down from the night.” 

“You’ve been working your body hard on patrol,” Bruce continued, when Jason just looked at him expectantly, waiting for more. . “We have to stretch those muscles out or your lactic acid will build up. And then, we have to signal to our bodies we’re home and safe from patrol. It’s time to wind down and sleep.”

“B,” Jason said, very sincerely, “you have  _ got  _ to stop saying bodies,” Then, almost impatiently, “Well? How do we do--” he waved his hand around--”all that?” 

Bruce smiled. “I’ll show you,” he said, “If you give me a minute.”

Jason huffed, but watched him with rapt attention. In some ways, Bruce reflected Jason was a lot like Dick--eager to learn, eager to please. Dick had come to him already an athlete, used to stretching. In fact, he’d been the one who’d gotten Bruce into the habit.

Just barely ten-years-old, only with Bruce about seven months, Dick had watched Bruce groaning his way to breakfast one morning with a sharp eye, and had said, “Y’know, B, the reason you’re so sore is you don’t stretch.” He’d nodded sagely and taken a bite of cereal.

“Think it might be the jumping off buildings, chum,” Bruce had said grumpily, sipping his coffee. He’d studied under several yoga gurus in India during his training years-- he knew the benefits of stretching, even if he didn’t frequently practice. He was always too exhausted from crime-ridden streets when he returned home, and either stayed up doing reports or fell asleep instantly. 

Dick had rolled his eyes. “Only  _ partially _ ,” he’d insisted, mouth full of food. He’d chewed, swallowed, and pointed his spoon in Bruce’s direction. “An athlete has to take care of his body, or it’ll eventually give out on him,” he’d quoted solemnly. Then, brightly, “I’ll show you tonight.”

Bruce had never admitted the stretching had made him looser on patrol, but Dick was observant enough he’d noticed anyway and strutted around smugly for weeks. It had turned into a nightly routine, and Bruce was smug himself that it helped settle an amped Dickie down from patrol enough to sleep. One second, he’d be chattering away and re-enacting jump-kick fights from their night, the next he’d be asleep over his calves, in a full seated forward fold. 

He wouldn’t even wake when Bruce carried him to bed.

Bruce missed Dick terribly, but he didn’t know how to poke at those feelings, and Jason was looking at him expectantly, so he cleared his throat, remembering Dick had come to him an athlete already--one whose flexibility had been paramount and who had been taught, with loving patience, the importance of practice, discipline, and good self-care--and Jason had come to Bruce straight from the streets, never having played a sport and often skipping whatever passed for a PE class at his school. 

Bruce started Jason with some simple neck stretches--left ear to left shoulder, right ear to right shoulder, some small circles. He didn’t hold the stretches as long as he might have on his own, anticipating Jason might grow quickly bored with them, but this kid stuck with him longer than his last might have, curious about what was coming next, not dictating. 

(It wasn’t that one was better than the other--Bruce had always appreciated Dick’s input and opinions, and the kid typically hung in longer than Bruce anticipated, when he wanted, when it felt good-- but he enjoyed Jason’s anticipation of learning something new, eager to know what was to come next, eager to please.) 

(That Jason was willing to hear him out, even, was a win over where they’d started, so many months before, when he was convinced everything Bruce did was to Jason’s own detriment. Everything was boring, nothing had a point.) 

Bruce then guided Jason through a seated forward fold, a side body stretch, a spinal twist that made Jason giggle at Bruce’s back cracking, then go “oof” when he copied the pose. He moved into a child’s pose next, and then suggested they try a corpse pose, though he thought Jason might protest that lying on his back and doing nothing was hardly a stretch at all. Jason, however, didn’t say anything. 

Bruce peeked up from where he had his head resting on the ground, then moved his hips back towards his heels to sit upright. Jason was still in child’s pose, but his face was turned to the side, facing Bruce, and his eyes were closed. 

His breath had evened out--he was fast asleep.

Bruce watched him for a moment, the rise and fall of his chest, the relaxed arms, still stretched out overhead, his soft, still young face. He couldn’t count the times he’d put Dickie to bed--before he’d grown up and resented being treated like a kid--but this was a first for Jason. 

Keeping his own breath soft and slow, almost reverent at the level of trust placed in him, Bruce bent to pick the boy up. Jason shifted in Bruce’s arms, and Bruce caught his breath, waiting to see if he’d wake up again. But Jason only mumbled a little, before settling his head against Bruce’s chest, still asleep.

Bruce’s chest, for its own part, felt as though it might burst, cradling such cargo. Bruce himself, superior to his own emotions and more controlled than his heartbeat, breathed in and out, deeply and slowly, then carried his Robin to bed. 

If, he supposed, all he had in his life was this, he was grateful for such trust and the Robins who had come into his life when he’d thought he had nothing left to fight for. 


End file.
